Canadian Nuclear Weapons

The Untold Story of Canada's Cold War Arsenal

John Clearwater

• Publisher: Dundurn Press
• Year: 1998
• Print ISBN: 9781550022995
• eBook ISBN: 9781459713185
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

"We are thus not only the first country in the world with the capability to produce nuclear weapons that chose not to do so, we are also the first nuclear armed country to have chosen to divest itself of nuclear weapons."

Pierre Trudeau United Nations, 26 May 1978

From 1963 to 1984, US nuclear warheads armed Canadian weapons systems in both Canada and West Germany. It is likely that during the early part of this period, the Canadian military was putting more effort, money, and manpower into the nuclear commitment than any other single activity. This important book is an operational-technical history and exposÈ of this period.

Its purpose is to bring together until-recently secret information about the nature of the nuclear arsenal in Canada, and combine it with known information about the systems in the US nuclear arsenal. The work begins with an account of the efforts of the Pearson government to sign the agreement with the US necessary to bring nuclear weapons to Canada. Subsequent chapters provide a detailed discussion of the four nuclear weapons systems deployed by Canada: the BOMARC surface-to-air guided interceptor missile; the Honest John short range battlefield rocket; the Starfighter tactical thermonuclear bomber; the VooDoo-Genie air defence system. Each chapter also includes a section on the accidents and incidents which occurred while the weapons were at Canadian sites. The final chapter covers the ultimately futile efforts of the Maritime Air Command and the Royal Canadian Navy to acquire nuclear weapons. An appendix includes the text of the until-now secret agreements Canada signed with the USA for the provision of nuclear weapons.

Illustrated throughout with photographs and diagrams, and supported by extensive transcriptions of original documents, Canadian Nuclear Weapons will be of great value both to scholars and interested laypersons in its presentation of what has been a deeply hidden secret of Canadian political and military history.

CHAPTER 1

PEARSON’S CABINET AND THE POLITICAL AGREEMENT TO ACQUIRE NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR THE CANADIAN MILITARY

Nuclear weapons were acquired for the Canadian forces solely on the basis of action taken by the Pearson Government after it defeated the Diefenbaker Government in the spring of 1963. Immediately following the installation in Cabinet of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson, Secretary of State for External Affairs Paul Martin, and Minister of National Defence Paul Hellyer, moves were made to reopen the negotiations with the US Department of State. It was the action of these three men which lead to Canada’s securing the nuclear weapons necessary for the arming of the Army’s Honest John, and the RCAF’s CF-101, CF-104, and BOMARC.

In this chapter readers will see for themselves the words and debates of the Pearson Cabinet both preceding and following the agreement to provide nuclear weapons to Canada. There is no reference at any place in the Cabinet minutes of dissension over acquiring nuclear weapons, and all efforts were placed in working out the details of the acquisition. Likewise, the Cabinet Defence Committee took an even more mechanical view of the situation, and set to the task of formulating a proposal which would fulfil Pearson’s promise to live up to the commitment which he said Diefenbaker had shunned.

Prior to becoming the governing party, the Liberal Party was in a period of policy upheaval. Having originally attacked the Diefenbaker Government for buying nuclear weapons carriers, the Liberals under Pearson, Hellyer, and Martin turned that policy around. Paul Hellyer, soon to be the Minister of National Defence (MND), lobbied the party leader, Lester Pearson, to gain acceptance of the nuclear commitments.

DOCUMENT #1

December 1962. Memo from Paul Hellyer to Lester Pearson, re: NATO/NORAD Nuclear Weapons.
MEMORANDUM TO THE HONOURABLE L.B. PEARSON

THE AIR DIVISION — In 1958, we (Canada) undertook to replace the eight (8) squadrons of F-86’s with CF-104’s and to undertake the strike attack role. This role consists of forward reconnaissance with atomic capability to deal with special targets. It is considered an essential role particularly for the next five years until the question of medium-range ballistic missiles and possible NATO control of such a force is decided and acted on. SACEUR feels that a strike capability adds greatly to the credibility of the defence and particularly in the case of a situation where reference to all-out war would not be taken seriously.

ARMAMENT — The CF-104 is designed to carry atomic bombs. The first squadron at No. 3 Wing (Zweibrucken) will be flying in December and ready to go active at the end of April. I am advised that it takes six months from the time a bi-lateral agreement is signed to work out the necessary details including supply of the weapons and training required to handle them. The military people at SHAPE are very concerned about the indecision of the Canadian government.

ALTERNATIVES — It was my opinion that the arming of the Honest John rocket while it is considered desirable is not absolutely essential in order for the brigade to continue to play an important role. The question of the air division is a different matter. If it is not armed with nuclear bombs, the consequences are far reaching. SACEUR is counting on this capacity. If we do not fulfil our commitment, there will be intense pressure on us to withdraw and turn the facilities over to others. Our influence in NATO will be reduced to negligible. There is no question but that we could have adopted a non-nuclear role four years ago and still have made a real contribution to the total effort. To make the choice now, however, for immediate implementation would involve a very great disruption and immediate expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars on new equipment. It would be a decision of such a magnitude that I do not believe it practicable.

PROLIFERATION OF ATOMIC WEAPONS — The signing by Canada of a bilateral agreement with the United States and the acceptance by us of atomic devices is not, in fact, proliferation of control. The weapons would still be under the control of the United States and this is logical in view of the fact that they have the ultimate responsibility in any event. We would only be joining those of our allies who have already joined in similar arrangements. Italy, Greece, Turkey, Holland, England, Germany, Belgium, Denmark and Norway have already signed agreements. Not all of these countries actually have the weapons on their soil but the majority do.

NORAD — If we decide to fulfil those commitments which we have undertaken in NATO, I cannot see why we should not do the same in NORAD. The one agreement would permit both. I have not changed my opinion about the usefulness of the BOMARC missile, but if there is one thing that is more useless than an armed BOMARC it is an unarmed BOMARC. Similarly, I cannot see the logic of surveillance planes which, if they did discover an enemy attack, would be helpless except to warn the United States. Surely we have not withdrawn from collective responsibility to the point where we would only clutter up the skies and impede our friends in their task.

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES — These are inevitable. If we don’t fulfil our agreements the Americans are almost certain to reduce or terminate their production sharing arrangements with us.

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES — The great majority of the Canadian people would want their country to fulfil its obligations. We are on sound ground in the fact that we have consistently recommended a different course at a time when a different choice was feasible. Now, however, our choice is limited by the circumstances. Furthermore, we are not bound by the present circumstances for all time. If we wished to play a different role this could be negotiated and implemented over a period of years in a responsible way. Now, however, we must uphold the honour and dignity of our word as a nation.

RECOMMENDATION — In view of the circumstances, particularly the fact that we as a nation have undertaken, of our own free will, certain commitments which we are now expected to fulfil, and the implementation of which is now a critical necessity in the alliance of which we are a part, I recommend that the Liberal Party state categorically that Canada should sign a bi-lateral agreement with the United States and fulfil its commitments forthwith.

(signed)

Paul T. Hellyer¹

Pearson accepted the ideas, and in January 1963 the Liberal Party reversed its position when Pearson announced that if elected he would finalize a nuclear weapons agreement with the United States and bring the warheads to Canada. This change in policy also caused Pierre Trudeau to temporarily leave the party in disgust. Later, the change of direction lead directly to the Cabinet and Cabinet Defence Committee discussions which produced the 16 August 1963 Agreement.

The only real debate in either the Cabinet or the Cabinet Defence Committee was a result of the Department of National Defence trying to add another weapon to the list of four. Supported by Hellyer, the military was trying to get airborne nuclear anti-submarine warfare weapons added to the four proposed systems. In this quest, Hellyer found himself virtually alone. Although at least one Cabinet member stated that such an addition was a prudent means of covering future contingencies, Pearson stated that there had been no record of any such commitment ever having been made. Further, Pearson and Martin, and certainly some other members, felt that to add another nuclear weapon to the list would stretch their credibility with the public.² Pearson recognized that his government held on with the slimmest of margins. In the end, Hellyer was defeated, and the original four nuclear weapons system commitments remained the only ones in the annex to the 16 August 1963 diplomatic note.^*

Pearson was quite clear about Canada “acquiring” nuclear weapons, in that he stated Canada was not acquiring nuclear weapons.³ This was a case of Mackenzie-King-like logic which professed “if necessary nuclear weapons for Canada, but not necessarily Canadian nuclear weapons.” In what came to be a classic of political obfuscation, Pearson would tell the public that Canadian military units only had access to United States nuclear weapons which would always remain in the custody of US military units. In this way, he avoided the thorny problem of horizontal proliferation. Pearson also avoided problems with US laws which forbade the United States government or military from transferring nuclear weapons into the control of another country. So although the Canadian forces “acquired” a set of new weapons for their exclusive use, they were not “acquired” in the sense of being purchased and owned: they were simply on restricted loan. In defence of the Pearson stand, it must be pointed out that paragraphs 4 and 6 of the 16 August 1963 agreement (see Appendix) make it quite clear that these would not be Canadian nuclear warheads, and that they would at all times be in the exclusive custody of US forces.

In politics, timing is everything, and this was certainly the case with the signing and publicizing of the 16 August 1963 agreement. Both the Canadian and US sides realized that although the negotiations had been concluded by mid-July,^** it would be impossible to sign the agreement right away.⁴ The United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain had just completed the Partial Test Ban Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere and under water in the hopes of reducing radioactive fallout. It would have been most impolitic to turn from the signing of what many considered an important arms control document, to the signing of an agreement which spread nuclear weapons to another (non-nuclear) country.^*

Unlike the full Cabinet, the Cabinet Defence Committee (CDC) was made up of select ministers whose portfolios contained a security brief. During the nuclear debates, these included the Prime Minister, the Minister of National Defence and the Associate Minister of National Defence, the Secretary of State for External Affairs, the Minister of Justice, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of Defence Production. At certain meetings, the military Chiefs of Staff would also be called upon to attend. It was this secretive Committee which approved, line-by-line, the final agreement to acquire nuclear weapons. They also received the direct reports of the Minister of National Defence and the Secretary of State for External Affairs on the situation regarding nuclear weapons. It was, therefore, mainly the work of Paul Martin and Paul Hellyer and their two staffs who pushed the agreement to a conclusion. Pearson clearly took the lead in these meetings, and although in favour of living up to what he saw as Canada’s commitment to its closest ally, Pearson was wary about the true nature of the commitments. In the very first CDC meeting, he even questioned whether there was any firm commitment on the part of Canada to arm VooDoo aircraft with nuclear Genies.⁵

Paul Martin, then the Secretary of State for External Affairs, covered the discussions and disagreements in his autobiography. He wrote that, right after assuming office, US Ambassador to Canada Walt Butterworth told him that Kennedy “wanted to conclude early agreements authorizing the joint control of nuclear weapons deployed with the Canadian armed services. Thereafter, Butterworth was in and out of my office about this matter more times than I care to recall. . . . Kennedy said that it would not take long to ready temporary storage facilities for the BOMARC warheads, and that, within eighteen months, Canada would be able to arm all its weapons with nuclear devices. That summer, a committee of officials from both sides drew up a preparatory agreement; Ross Campbell was in charge of Canada’s team.”⁶

The following extracts are all from minutes of Cabinet meetings and Cabinet Defence Committee meeting at which the Pearson Cabinet debated and discussed the acquisition of nuclear weapons for the Canadian military. The major players were Pearson himself, Paul Martin from External, and Paul Hellyer from Defence. Virtually all debate was between the two Pauls, with Pearson stepping in to settle disputes. The documents range from the very first Cabinet discussion of the nuclear question in the Pearson years, to the meeting held on the day the agreement was signed. Once agreement was reached, Canada then had the problem of calming relations with the Federal Republic of Germany, as the unique Canada-US nuclear agreement was one the US did not wish West Germany to have. The West Germans, like many other European NATO allies of the United States, did not have the same level of control afforded Canada in the Canada-US agreement. For this reason, the United States was unwilling to allow the Canadian government to show the agreeme...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Pearson’s Cabinet and the Political Agreement to Acquire Nuclear Weapons for the Canadian Military
• Chapter 2 BOMARC: the Weapon and the Squadrons
• Chapter 3 Starfighter: the Weapons
• Chapter 4 Starfighter: the Squadrons
• Chapter 5 Honest John: the Weapon and the Batteries
• Chapter 6 The CF-101B VooDoo and Genie Rocket
• Chapter 7 Anti-Submarine Warfare
• Concluding Thoughts
• Appendix
• Endnotes